Vocational Guilt

[reginascribam]

Deleted by request of the author

[Sponsa-Christi]

Your vocation is between you and God, not God and your mother. God isn't going to reveal His will for your life to your mother instead of you. 

We owe our parents respect, and to a certain extent obedience when we are minors, but parents don't have the right to choose their children's vocations for them. 

If you in conscience prayerfully believe God is not calling you to consecrated life, you should feel free to marry without any vocational guilt. 

[reginascribam]

I truly, truly do. If God wanted me to be a nun, I would have already become one, but ever since I was little, I knew I was called to be a mom and wife

[gloriana35]

I'm so weary of the idea that whatever makes us happy is not 'God's will.' Follow your heart and happiness! 

It's odd - I remember two friends of mine (not even practising Catholics, both with a crop of boyfriends) who had several years of being afraid God wanted them in convents. Are you from Ireland? That seems to be a very Irish fear.

Stop thinking that whatever makes you happy means God wants a sacrifice (not that there isn't sacrifice in any life - but take them as they come, don't hunt for them.) I'm in consecrated life (for many years), but the love I saw between my mother and father, and the commitment that endured to the day they died,tells me what a blessed state it is. (I could give many other examples, of course.) Don't let this misplaced guilt trouble you. 

[reginascribam]

Funnily enough, my entire family is from Ireland. I'm a third generation American, but we still consider ourselves Irish. 

[Luigi]

An awful lot of women joined religious orders in the years before the Second Vatican Council. An awful lot of women left religious orders after the Second Vatican Council. One reason so many women (and men) left - and it's only one reason, it's not a comprehensive explanation - was that so many of them never should have joined in the first place. In those days, an awful lot of families put an awful lot of pressure on an awful lot of their children to become a priest or join a religious order.

If God doesn't call the person to religious life or the priesthood, she or he shouldn't join.

[Lilllabettt]

8 minutes ago, reginascribam said:

 

Your mom has screwed up this aspect of parenting.  All parents screw up something. Some do more than others. The different ways in which your parents failed will become apparent as you get older.  You can practice compassion, mercy, and forgiveness while at the same time recognizing their BS as BS.  

[truthfinder]

Being forced into a religious community de jure invalidates any vows received.  This has been time-honoured for centuries.  Further, unlike times past, one just can't be sent to the nearest convent - the general definition of a true vocation is the willingness of the person to try their vocation AND the ability of the superior to accept this person (which isn't completely confirmed until one is in final vows). 

Despite being rather wordy, I found this old article from the Catholic encyclopedia to be comforting (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15498a.htm) - to sum the key parts up: unless you have some giant physical manifestation of God's desire for you to enter religious life, there is no sin in choosing to follow a vocation to marriage or religious life as you feel.  Some people get very caught/trapped in a pattern of thinking that they are sinning by not following a religious vocation.  Further, you have already been betrothed, which is a formal, although not canonically - binding, commitment.  No one can overthrow that without a just and legitimate reason.

[Sister Leticia]

2 hours ago, reginascribam said:

she'd pressure me into leaving him and going to live with the Dominican sisters nearby. 

Really? She would decide that you are going to live with these sisters... and they would obey her decision regarding who comes to live in their house???

Don't worry. As Truthfinder has already said, nobody can just be sent to a convent, unlike in the Middle Ages, or melodramatic romantic novels. If you contacted a convent (to please your mother, say) and they asked you about your vocation story and you repeated what you've said here, they would not accept you. Nobody would.

So focus on preparing to marry your fiance, and on living the vocation God has chosen for you, and communicated to you.

[JHFamily]

I've read in Moral Theology books that it is actually a sin for a parent to intrude in the decision of their children in regard to their vocations, sometimes to the point that it is a mortal sin.  (Intrude here, not advise.)  She has certainly overstepped her authority in this matter.  You seem to already know what's in your heart, and I pray you will have many happy years with your husband.  

[Seven77]

 

I think that it's actually a good sign that your mom has been trying to force you to enter the convent--- it confirms that you probably aren't supposed to. from what you have described, it seems to me that you are doing and want to do what God wants you to do. I don't think it was an accident or coincidental that you were betrothed on the feast of St. Joseph (pretty sure you know this already).  I think you should be completely at peace about this. Also, I don't think that God got you this far in order to switch up on you. He doesn't rob us of our peace, he is the giver of peace, he is not our competitor… And if you are truly at peace and believe that you are where God wants you,, not hiding anything from  yourself, then it seems to me you are definitely on the right path.

Edited July 25, 2019 by Seven77

[reginascribam]

I am truly at peace with the decision I'm making to marry him. He is a wonderful man who will and has brought me closer to God. Thank you all for the help. My mom is wonderful, but is very pushy in some things. She doesn't let us kid our brothers about getting married and we were never allowed to go to dances growing up or the like because it would supposedly ruin our religious vocations. My dad isn't like that, he usually is the one to have my mom back off a bit.

[gloriana35]

I'm still in my sixties, but those of us in our 60s-70s were 'on the cusp' with ways in which Catholic practise developed. It was highly unstable. There were devout Catholics I knew personally who thought that an unusually strict upbringing (and openness to having any number of children, which was rare even for practising Catholics by our adult years) would create saints.

Sometimes, it did not surprise me that their children had no interest in church at all! Not that they wanted all of their children in religious life (...though those devoted to Therese might have aspired to this...), but they pictured children who were sort of apostles. 

I don't know your mother, of course, but for someone to not even want her children to go to dances, or to talk about marriage, is very odd. She seems to be highly controlling - possibly someone with great fear. I would imagine it might even be a pathological obsession. You must have had a lifetime of having a mother it was impossible to please - and may be exhausted with the effort, going along with her obsessions just to keep peace. 

There are many reasons people left religious life  - but there certainly were cases where priests or religious were miserable because it was their mother's vocation, not their own. 

Parents usually realise that their adult children may make choices which would not match what they envisioned. It's their problem if they can't live with this reality. Run off with your fiance and get married in another country if you must :D , but do it! You don't need a life ahead of abandoning your happiness - it will NOT mean God will shower you with graces for the sacrifice. Those who marry, enter religious life, whatever, have it come about naturally - it isn't that whatever we love opposes God's will, and that He is a trickster looking to thwart us.

This is NOT a work of spiritual direction, by any means, but, if you want to spend a relaxing summer afternoon, see if you can find a copy of Andrew Greeley's 'Ascent Into Hell.' The characters of Hugh, Elizabeth, and Maria all illustrate traits that you will not find unthinkable... and Maria has the right idea. 

[reginascribam]

My mom has severe anxiety. I don't know almost anything about her childhood, but my grandmother (her mom) is extremely controlling and can be very malicious. She converted right before having me and my other siblings. But, she converted into a really, really old form of Catholisism so we were all raised like it was the 1900s. I guess maybe that's why she was so protective of us.

[dominicansoul]

If you listen to your mom and entered the Dominicans they would see you don’t have a vocation and tell you to go home .  Then you would lose your fiancé.  You can’t pull a fast one over a community.  Communities can see right through that kind of stuff.  You have to enter because your heart and your happiness depends on it.  Seeing this is not the case, go forward in marriage and get the guilty feeling out of you, it’s not from God....

[Indwelling Trinity]

On 7/25/2019 at 11:25 AM, reginascribam said:

Hey all! 

 

 

My sweetheart and I were betrothed on the feast of St. Joseph this year and are getting married in early 2021. However, I've been extremely nervous about it. I want to make sure that I'm doing God's Will. It seems that He has been leading me to this all along and has given me signs and spoken to me, but at the same time, I feel nervous about the commitment. I love my fiance very, very much, but if God called me away, I would go, even if it broke my heart. 

 

At the same time, my mom has been trying to force me into a convent since I was a kid. When my sweetheart asked for permission to date me, my mom tried to convince my dad to say no, because she was sure that if I was single long enough, I'd become a nun. When I broke up with my first boyfriend, she told me that I was sad because I should be a nun. Even when I was little and told her I wanted to get married and be a mom, she'd tell me that she wanted me to be a nun instead and said God told her I would.  I guess that never made sense to me. I grew up very much in love with God but with no desire to be a nun. I was around sisters and nuns constantly of just about every order. I was pressured to discern by my mom. I did, and I swear he was telling me to marry my fiance.

 

As a result, I guess I feel nervous or guilty that I somehow have this weirdly hidden vocation I never knew about. I don't know how to explain what I'm feeling about it.I have some  impediments to that that I couldn't tell my mom about, but they would effectively keep me from joining any order of religious.  If my mom ever caught wind of a difficulty my fiance and I were having, she'd pressure me into leaving him and going to live with the Dominican sisters nearby. No one else has ever agreed with my mom on this subject ever. I mean, I love God and would die for my Faith, but I want to love Him as a simple housewife and raise children to glorify Him. I've never had the desire to be a nun. I want to be a mother and wife, but more importantly, I want to be the wife of my amazing fiance and raise his children.  

It sounds like your mom is Unconsciously trying to live the life she would have liked for herself through you.

many parents do this subconsciously; on the other hand some parents see it as achieving. the Highest merit badge possible

My Dad used to do this . when I became can M.C. it was if it were nothing and there was not One single good wish from my family

But one I finished my medical studies and Post grad surgical Residency. all of a sudden. he was boasting of me as the doctor in the family which would upset me and make me cringe. 

One it was in poor taste secondly there was no reason for everyone to know and third It was an Unspoken judgment of me and my Value to him 

When I was diagnosed with M. S. and told him I had to restire because of disability , he just. lit a Cigarette, turned around shook his head said I was a loser.

what is most is to find a quiet spot relax and just sit with God and gently- lay the matter before him

Whatever gives your heart the mast Peace and happiness before God the Holy Trinity our Lady and God's angels , will most I, likely be  your answer . If Gods will is there for you in the and you will walk away With a gentle peace and Certitude that more on Earth can take from you.

hope this helps God Bless

Sr Emmanuel

[reginascribam]

Thank you all for the help! 

 

My mom came up to me out of nowhere and went into a long apology and even promised to back out  a bit. I nearly cried when I heard it. Id waited so long to hear something like that from her...

 

anyway, my fiancé and I are looking at wedding dates at the moment! God has truly blessed us. We were thinking of perhaps August 22 2020 or, if our priest wants us to wait a little more, January 23 2021. My sweetheart and I have a very special devotion to the blessed Mother, so I will be wearing a blue sash and he will have a miraculous medal instead of just a buttonhole flower thing.

 

on top of it, I discovered through prayer that God is calling me to work as a doula! It all seems too good to be true. I am so blessed. I dreamed of having this as a child, and now I have everything I ever prayed for...God is so good to me and my fiancé 

[Guest]

Beautiful almost married story.

May The Good Lord continue to be good to you and your fiance as I know He will.  May the prayers of His Mother bring you both closer to her Son.  It has been said that the criteria of holiness is devotion to Mary.  And we really need more married saints.

God bless you both at this very happy time in your journey......and your priest advisor too.   

[Antigonos]

Let me inject a cautious note.  Perhaps it will all happen as you currently think it will.  But then again, perhaps it won't.  Flexibility is a virtue.  I am glad that you and your mother have come to a rapprochement.

Being a doula is less exciting and more demanding than you might imagine.  There's a huge gap between the idealized image of the ecstatic new mother and the realities of labor.  To be honest, I would say to put that ambition on a back burner until you have the experience of giving birth yourself [I am a retired certified nurse midwife of 50 years' experience, btw]  Marriage is a full time job in itself. <g> [40th anniversary in 2 months, so I've got some of that "job experience" too in my background]

Edited August 9, 2019 by Antigonos

[gloriana35]

Wonderful post, Antigonos. 

I'm very happy for you, Regina - but I hope you won't mind a light-hearted, teasing reference from me. Let yourself go a bit, and fully enjoy being in love, and courtship. (My own mother used to happily recall places she went with my dad when they were dating, many decades later.) 

You seem to be a bit too obedient by nature. First, you worry about your mother - about disobeying God - now about having your priest determine your wedding date. Relax a  bit! It seems you have to add on being a doula to justify being happy about an upcoming wedding.

I saw a wonderful post on Facebook today - 'two weeks till my wedding day! I can't wait - I love him so much!" I hope the day when I see a similar post from you is not far off.